


Coda

by siriusblue



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Angst, Happy Ending, M/M, POV Greg, Tooth-Rotting Fluff
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-09-04
Updated: 2017-09-04
Packaged: 2018-12-23 21:14:57
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,091
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11998092
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/siriusblue/pseuds/siriusblue
Summary: A sequel to 'The Kindness of Strangers'. Read that first. It helps, honestly.





	Coda

CODA

 

A/N: This is a direct sequel to ‘The Kindness of Strangers’ and it really, _really_ helps if you read that first. Some folks wanted a conclusion, truth to tell, so did I.

 

For egmon73, Lizlemler and lemondropped.

 

It hurt.

 

I had never known such gut-wrenching, soul-destroying pain in my life, and had never expected it. I had had colds that had lasted longer than that perfect summer fling with Mycroft, but they had not sent me into a downward spiral of self-doubt, wishful thinking and wondering what-might-have-been. I had, unwittingly, fallen in love and let him get away without realising just how much he had come to mean to me.

 

I dealt with it using the only toolkit I had; casual sex with nameless strangers, more alcohol that was good for me, and painting.

 

I tried to paint him out of me, endless sketches littered my bedroom floor and practically everything I owned bore traces of vermillion and burnt umber. In the end, I produced something wonderful, something that, every time I looked at it, reminded me of just how powerful, how intense that time with Mycroft had been. Two men, holding hands. Two men making love on a blue and grey striped sofa and two men walking away from each other, visibly bleeding from myriad wounds.

 

That triptych, ‘Love hurts, Love heals’ that I considered my masterpiece got sold to a London gallery and ended up in an exhibition of Queer Art that the Times art critic raved about, the ‘emerging talent of Greg Lomax is one to look out for’.

 

Yeah, I wasn’t brave enough to use my real name, especially when I was now a probationary PC in the Metropolitan Police, that bastion of tolerance and equality. And I never painted to exhibition standard again.

 

Mum had been thrilled that I had decided to follow in my dad’s footsteps, accepting the fact that making sweeping changes in my life and getting well out of my comfort zone was the only way I was going to move on.

 

Fast forward to ten years ago. I was a newly-minted Detective Inspector with Scotland Yard with a thirst to prove myself, stuck in the final decay of a toxic relationship and bordering on a serious drink problem. The case was bizarre; an elderly woman, dead in a sauna of hypothermia. It looked like my first case as SIO would end with me dying on my arse until a skinny, curly haired young man steamrollered himself into my investigation, solved it in less time than it takes to boil a kettle, insulted half of my SOCO’s and then collapsed into my arms, whatever he had taken to produce such brilliant deductions had finally caught up with him.

 

Instead of arresting him, I wrapped him up and took him to the nearest hospital where I made sure he was going to be looked after and that his family had been contacted. I didn’t register the name at first, not really. Twenty years is a long time, after all and coincidences do happen. However, it was unlikely there were two people called Sherlock Holmes.

 

I wasn’t expecting the knock on the door much later that night. I answered it, half-drunk already.

 

I wondered if some vindictive bastard had spiked my whisky because it was the only rational explanation for Mycroft Holmes to be standing on my doorstep. I recognised him immediately. There were some changes; he had a lot less hair, he was dressed like an upper-class bank manager and his expression was neutral, guarded, a man who gave nothing away. In that brief second before either of us spoke I wanted to track down whoever had stolen his teasing smile and the warmth from his eyes and pound them into the pavement.

 

“Mycroft! How did you know where I live?”

 

“Does it really matter?”

 

I realised it didn’t. I grabbed him by the overcoat and dragged him into the hall. Real life stopped then and there and Mycroft put up no resistance, yielding his mouth to me with a soft sound of pleasure, guiding him to my bedroom, undressing him, no words spoken, only mutual agreement, rediscovering the planes and contours of his body, strangely familiar as they were, his well-remembered voice urging me on as the world shrank to the two of us in my bed and the endgame culminating in sweat, semen and tears perfumed by the wet earth smell of sex.

 

“Please, Greg,” he whispered. “Don’t leave me again.”

 

“I won’t. The last time almost killed me. I never want to be without you.”

 

Of course, when Real Life reasserts itself you see pillow talk for what it really is and the impossibility of promises made in the dark, however much you might want them to be true.

 

And sometimes Real Life takes pity and hands you lemonade instead of lemons…

 

_I finish cleaning my teeth and survey myself in the bathroom mirror as I stand in my underwear. I’m the image of my father at this age, silver hair, dark eyes fanned with wrinkles, broad shoulders and a waist thickened by too much beer, too many takeaways and not enough exercise. I pull on a t-shirt and switch off the light._

_There’s deep, regular breathing coming from the bedroom and I pause in the doorway. Mycroft has fallen asleep with the bedside light on, lying facing the door, sheets rumpled round his bare chest. When his hair isn’t ruthlessly styled with product it is still every colour of autumn and curls slightly, just like Sherlock’s. He’s naked under that sheet; the man who wears a three piece suit every day like a shield is, within these walls, a true sensualist, completely uninhibited and amazingly shameless in bed. He wears nothing but the wedding ring I placed on his finger some years past, the twin to the one I wear on my own left hand._

_I climb in and spoon up behind him, one arm round his waist as he wriggles delightfully close and I kiss his warm neck._

_It hadn’t been easy. We weren’t the two carefree young men we had been, but there was never, ever any doubt that we loved each other. And we were wise enough now to know that the best things in life had to be worked at and talked through, and somehow, we survived._

_“I love you,” I whisper into Mycroft’s ear, even though I know he’s fast asleep and I switch off the light and close my eyes._

The End.

 

 

 

 

 

 


End file.
